Re: Username significance (?)

Fear of clowns is a rather common phobia, and one which completely evades me. All my years working with psych patients, mental health services, all that crap, I have never been able to understand why anyone would be afraid of a clown. I see that pic up there and all it does it make me think, "Ooh, that clown's got a hot rack." Not "Ooh, that hot rack's got a big, scary clown face."

Re: Username significance (?)

^ Being totally serious, I actually have a fear of clowns myself Lon. And I know where it stems from too, from childhood. I won't bore you (and everyone else) with the story but basically it just carried on from childhood to now. I know it's just a person with paint on and such but I still have a fear of clowns. I don't know, I just really dislike them and the way they look.

Re: Username significance (?)

Doesn't bore me, man. I can talk for hours about psych stuff. But I do have experience dealing with phobias, so here's a question I want you to ask yourself:

When you think back to whatever incident caused this fear, are you remembering it through the eyes of the child you used to be, or are you standing back and looking at it through the eyes of the rational and mature adult you are today?

Re: Username significance (?)

I have no problem with real life clowns. Horror movie clowns bug me because I know they're going to turn out to be evil, and generally act freaky. I once asked a clown at some party to make one of those balloon animal sculptures, to do a monkey. Pretty much ended up looking the same as a dog, but standing on its tail, . But hey, he gave it a shot instead of stabbing me in the heart, so bonus!

@Lon- I picked that pic for that exact reason, fear of clown vs. nice rack. What's that called, when you gradually expose someone to their fear?

Re: Username significance (?)

Re: Username significance (?)

Coulrophobia is a very common fear that afflicts many people. I've always been intrigued by it as I can't see the aversion some folks have to clowns. Like most irrational phobias I would assume it can be traced back to some childhood trauma and as clowns are often booked as 'entertainment' at childrens parties this may be responsible for how widespread it is.

Thank you - I have been Dr. Fulcento and you now owe me fifty quid for this consultation.

Re: Username significance (?)

LoudLon wrote:

Doesn't bore me, man. I can talk for hours about psych stuff. But I do have experience dealing with phobias, so here's a question I want you to ask yourself:

When you think back to whatever incident caused this fear, are you remembering it through the eyes of the child you used to be, or are you standing back and looking at it through the eyes of the rational and mature adult you are today?

Well, when I am generally reliving the memory/thinking back over it I am looking through the eyes of my younger self. But even if I try to see it from my eyes now (an adult) I still find it scary. I'm thinking about it a lot and trying to nail down why (other than my childhood accident) I find clowns scary, and I don't know. I kind of think, it's like they are portraying to be happy with the face paint and such - but you never really know if they are or not. I don't know, I'm just running through options to myself at this point.

Re: Username significance (?)

I was cool with clowns until I was 5 years old and my aunt thought it would be funny to dress as a clown and chase me around her house. Everyone got a kick out of it but me. However now I'm not afraid of clowns anymore.

Re: Username significance (?)

This makes me wonder why I'm uncomfortable with heights. I've hiked up mountains and looked down on several hundred foot sheer cliffs. So I'm not phobic, just uncomfortable. Like when I drive over a tall suspension bridge. Is that a thing (the not-quite-phobia, not the bridges)?

Re: Username significance (?)

^ Hmm...well maybe it's like, you don't like looking down things you are on that are flat? Like you said you've looked down a mountain and not have a problem. But it's not like over the edge of a mountain is just flat straight down right? So maybe it's something like that? I don't know, I'm pulling straws here.

Re: Username significance (?)

Re: Username significance (?)

azathoth wrote:

This makes me wonder why I'm uncomfortable with heights. I've hiked up mountains and looked down on several hundred foot sheer cliffs. So I'm not phobic, just uncomfortable. Like when I drive over a tall suspension bridge. Is that a thing (the not-quite-phobia, not the bridges)?

Re: Username significance (?)

If I tried that I would freeze at the edge, my legs would turn to jelly and I would prolly straddle that beam all white knuckled for hours before finally plucking up the courage to ever so slowly shimmy my way back to the scaffolding.There are even more sweaty palm instances of Russian kids playing around on towers on LiveLeak but I'll spare yuy those Az!

Re: Username significance (?)

Watching other people being crazy doesn't both me. I can walk on the roof to do repairs, clean out the gutters. I've climbed up a good 30 feet in trees. I think it's when it gets high enough that I have no chance to survive a fall where I get iffy. I should try an experiment with a BASE-jumping parachute on to see if that would make a difference. Because why not psychologically experiment on myself!

Re: Username significance (?)

I just wanted a username that was quick, but notable, basically. I thought THE CREATURE would be a bad ass title. And I do like it. However, fellow horror-inmates here have also referred to be as 'Creature' and 'Creetch', which work too. In fact, I've actually adopted 'Creetch' as my username on a couple of sites.